How to Use Blogs Effectively in PR

As a sponsor of the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament, Coca-Cola devised a public relations campaign that merged the common reality television concept of strangers living together with the growing world of blogging. The company hired professional bloggers to live in a flat in Germany, where the tournament was being held. Then, fans participated in a contest to live and work with the bloggers for the duration of the month-long tournament. Everyone would blog about their experiences -- and share their entries and photos with the world -- with no editing or influence from Coca-Cola.

“You have to engage your audience through whatever means necessary,” says Petro Kacur, senior manager of Coca-Cola’s marketing and communications group in Atlanta. “More of our audience is using blogs and spending time online.”

The Web currently has 15 million active blogs read by 57 million people, says Rhoda Weiss, chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America. “Blogs are here to stay,” she says. “You can’t put your head in the sand.”

Recognizing the growing reach of blogs, many PR professionals are now harnessing their power to:

• Communicate with clients and customers directly.
• Give their organizations a chance to share their side of the story.
• Obtain quick, cheap and honest feedback.

If you’re ready to plunge into the blogosphere, here’s how to use blogs as part of your PR strategy:

Learn from the Best

When Kodak started thinking about its corporate blog, it asked General Motors for advice. Already well-known for its “FastLane Blog,” in which executives share stories about new products and services, those who maintained the GM blog agreed to confer by phone with the new media team at Kodak to answer questions about blogging best practices. These sessions helped Kodak determine how to best structure its blog, “PluggedIn,” where employees share their experiences through photos and stories.

Plan Well

An important initial step in creating a blog is choosing a good domain name -- one that’s simple to spell and easy to remember, Weiss says. The domain name should also be the same as the blog title or a close match.

You will then need to decide who will write, manage and monitor the blog. A few basic rules apply:

• Choose a regular day and time for posting new entries, so readers can easily follow the blog.
• If blogging is too much work for one person, create a team of bloggers to rotate the responsibility.
• Never force anyone to keep a blog.
• Never have PR staff write the blog. Readers will see right through you, and could humiliate you in the blogosphere.

Budget Wisely

While blogs are cheaper than most other forms of promotion, they’re not free. You might have to invest in software. You may also have to compensate employees for the work they put in to maintain the blog and monitor reader comments. That workload can be considerable.

Write Right

The gut of a blog is its content -- the words and images you share with your audience. Authenticity and transparency are the keys to the blog’s success. You need real people to divulge their genuine thoughts, feelings and ideas. “Bloggers’ personalities need to come through in their blogs,” says Tom Murphy, head of PR and community affairs for Microsoft Ireland in Dublin. Putting a human face on the corporation through blogs helps companies drive media coverage, generate content and improve search engine optimization, he says.

Regardless of the topic, bloggers should reflect the company’s culture and message in their entries. But they should also keep it real and open up to readers. Sharing ideas and a specific point of view should be a priority. “If you don’t take a stand, you don’t stand for anything,” says Deirdre Breakenridge, president of PFS Marketwyse, a Totowa, NJ-based marketing agency. At the same time, be sure to keep proprietary information out of corporate blogs, she says.

Reader comments are an essential part of any successful blog. You’ll have to monitor them for offensive language and personal attacks. However, most experts agree that you must allow criticism to appear in the reader comments. It’s the only way to gain readers’ trust. Clearly explaining your policy regarding reader comments is a good way to begin building an amicable relationship with your audience.

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